Many small-slat venetian blinds, often called mini-blinds, are in use today in windows of homes and offices. To tilt the slats of such blinds, it is common to rotate a vertical elongate wand which is connected to a rotatable drive on upper portion of the blind. the rotatable drive on conventional blinds is typically a post having a horizontal bore therethrough or a hook.
In my previous patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,759,398, I disclose an improved wand handle that includes axially extending external threads. A hand-operated nut mounted on the wand handle includes internal threads that interact with the wand handle threads for rotating the wand in response to vertical movement of the nut. The improved wand handle greatly facilitates rotation of the wand, both in speed and ease of rotation.
Wands must be replaced periodically and high speed wands of the type described above are often used to replace conventional wands. Conventional replacement wands are sold having a drive connector for the specific type of connector on the blind. This is problematic as the buyer often has not paid any attention to this feature. Therefore, there has been a need for a replacement wand having a drive connector easily adaptable to both types of drive. Also, although a replacement wand is more easily connected to a drive hook, the connection is not as secure as with a drive post and the elements may disengage during use. This is particularly true with the high speed wands due to the increased wand movement during use. Therefore, there has been a need for an improved wand connection for drive hooks and particularly an improved connection for high speed wands.